Desuen, 12-on-Rye, 568

Desuen, 12-on-Rye, 568

The forest hedge meandered a long way north, a natural marker upon the land. In places it was scant but trampled scrub, interminable sections of barren grassland making you question whether you had lost your way. But no, if you looked carefully, if you stepped back upon your perspective, you could always see it, always find it. In other places it was a rigid, literal hedge. Not the well-kept and manicured hedge of some lord’s manor, but a hedge nonetheless, sprawling but defined, like it had been planted deliberately and then let run wild, undergoing the occasional loose trim.

I had studied enough to know the main reason for this, or at least a scholar’s premise. The large shrub dominating the majority of the hedge was sensitive to the magnetic drift of the world. In this region at least, running north there was some sort of magnetic seam. If the hedge grows too far outside of this seam, it withers. Perhaps the roots garner nutrients from it somehow. Some sort of conversion of energy. Perhaps it is pulled along by it, like the way flowers somehow turn toward light. In any case, I have no idea, and I doubt anyone truly does.

Over time, the hedge and all the associated plants that like to entwine along with it have spread in an uncanny route that runs a rough path north. This is no trade route though, no place where an established path has been forged or demarcated through the trodden boots of time. Too remote here, after all. But the hedge is old. Tirelessly old. Old but unwavering, making it an ideal natural guide.

Of course on maps, like the very one Brae carried folded in her belt, the hedge was a solid line.

A simple, easy-to-follow, easy-to-spot, magical black line.

Hah!

“No cartographer has ever walked this,” I’d said with theatrical disgust to Brae on the second day of our journey, the day before we saw the meteorite. After seven hours of walking, we rested against the trunk of a large oak, sharing sips from one of our water flasks. We were unlikely to run out—there would be enough streams on our journey and we carried three flasks each—but with Brae you did things by the book. You took precautions.

To the south, a rough patch of hedge was visible; to the north, nothing but tall grass.

“Look at this,” I said pointing down to the map, the cloth parchment sprawled in front of us on the ground. I hovered my finger (hovered, not touched; the latter mistake already made) over where I felt confident we were. “Solid line, Brae. Just a solid line.” I stood up and turned, making comparison gestures with my hands towards the north and the south.

“Sit down, fool. You’re not even close. We’re here.” Brae placed her finger on the map’s surface, tracing a line from where I thought we were to where she thought—knew—we were. The silver ring on her right index finger, a plain but polished band, flashed briefly as it caught a band of sunlight streaming through the oak’s thick canopy.

“There’s no tree there though. This oak is probably a thousand years old. There should be a tree there.” I said, looking at Brae and waiting for the creases. I caught one, just a hint near her right eye. One was enough. Like a morsel of food, that would keep me going for a while.

“Cartographers don’t draw trees, dimwit. Not unless there’s a whole bunch of them together.” She pointed off to the east where the landscape swelled to a series of low hills, each carpeted in thick forest.

I pictured a bunch of cartographers sat together, each of them taking turns to try to draw a single tree. I refrained from sharing this image.

“Hmm, fair point, fair Brae” I said, scratching the top of my head. Was I really a dimwit? Looking down, I could see that Brae was quite right. East of the point on the map where she had indicated we were, depicted quite clearly by concentric lines, were the hills that lay off to my right. Sketched between these lines, in a rudimentary yet neat fashion, were a strand of trees. Pashelback forest was written below. I’d never heard of it.

“Come on, we’ve wasted enough time.” Brae started to fold up the map, but not before she traced her finger a fair way further north, to a point where a tiny fleck of ink smudged the map’s surface. She tapped it twice and made a short clucking noise in the back of her throat. Then she continued folding the parchment, with all the due care that one would use to handle a kitten. I watched her as she did this, as her hands moved with such dexterous motion. Despite her strength and profession, those hands were delicate and the skin of her palms soft. Well, they looked soft. Let me stress that. I couldn’t know for sure, not then, how they actually felt, given the only time those hands had touched me had been within a glove. Throttling my throat. After I made a remark about her father. That had been back in Toӧr, and at the time I was rather proud of that remark. But Brae had felt otherwise. It was a stupid thing to say, I realise that now.

Finally, with one last careful fold complete, she pushed the map through two loops in her belt, securing it in place. Shouldering her satchel and bow, tying the waterskin back in its place alongside her other two, she caught me watching.

“What?” she asked, her amber eyes blazing in the afternoon light.

“Oh, nothing,” I said, smiling. “I just like the way you fold maps. It’s very calming.” I stared longingly at that map, folded neatly into her belt.

But Brae said nothing in reply. She merely huffed and walked on, without looking back.

She knew I’d follow.

And so I did.